State DOE approves charter school plan by Hudson County Boys and Girls Club, hospital

Jersey City will soon be home to a new charter school
intended to focus on education in the medical sciences after it earned state approval, school officials confirmed this afternoon.

The application for Great
Futures Charter High School for the Health Sciences, submitted in June as a joint effort of the Boys
and Girls Club of Hudson County and Jersey City Medical Center, was approved Tuesday by the state Department of Education.

The school will
be housed in the new Boys and Girls Club building at Grove and Grand streets,
a short distance from the hospital's campus. It is set to open in September 2014, starting with ninth grade, said Gary Greenberg, executive director and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson
County.

Each year through 2017, a new ninth grade will be added. School officials are aiming to have 125 students in each class.

Great Futures is one of three out of 38 applicants that were approved by the DOE. The other two schools set to open in 2014 are in
Trenton.

Three different career
pathways will be offered, each of which will address either the clinical,
technical, or administrative aspects of health care, Greenberg said. Students will begin the program with career exploration in ninth grade, and
end with a chosen internship in their senior year.

Greenberg said
that the school will present pupils not only with a high school education that
will coincide with health sciences, but also the opportunity to gain hands-on
experience in medical professions that he says are in "high demand."

He added that the
school will be very "goal-oriented" and have a "rigorous
curriculum model" which will provide pupils with day-to-day guidance that
he feels many lose when entering high school.

While it's expected that the majority of students
will pursue college after graduation, each student would be prepared to achieve certification as a patient care technician (PCT) or certified emergency medical
technician, school officials said.